CHAPTER XIII THE OVERLAND ROUTE

Overland trade between Europe and India has existed from the earliest times and was fully developed during the Roman Empire. After the overthrow of the Western Empire by Odoacer in A.D. 476 and during the struggles with the Persians and Saracens the overland trade with the East languished until the consolidation of the Saracenic power at Damascus, Cairo and Bagdad. It was again thrown into disorder by the ascendancy of the Turkish Guard at Bagdad, and did not revive until the thirteenth century, when, as the result of the Crusades, Venice and Genoa became the great emporia for Eastern spices, drugs and silks. The merchandise came by land to the ports of the Levant and the Black Sea, but the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1483 drove the traffic to Alexandria, which continued to be the mart for Eastern wares until the discovery of the Cape route to India altered the whole conditions of trade.

The first historical attempt to reach England from India by the overland route was made in 1777 when Lord Pigot, Governor of Madras, was placed in confinement by his own Council. Both parties attempted to avoid loss of time in representing their case to the Board of Directors by despatching messengers up the Red Sea and across Egypt. The Council's messenger, Captain Dibdin, managed to land at Tor near the mouth of the Gulf of Suez, to make his way across Egypt and finally to reach his destination. Not so Mr. Eyles Irwin, the messenger of the Governor. He sailed in the brig Adventure, and after many mishaps only succeeded in reaching Cosseir on the Red Sea in July, where he and his companions were detained by the Turks.

In 1778, after the fall of Pondicherry, Warren Hastings was determined that the good news should go home via Suez, and he engaged to send Mr. Greuber by a fast sailing packet to that port with the despatches. The proposal was strenuously opposed by Francis and Wheler, but Hastings, having Barwell on his side and a casting vote in Council, was able to carry out his intention. Mr. Greuber managed to get through by this route, but neither Hastings nor the Board of Directors anticipated the objections which the Ottoman Porte had to any navigation of the Red Sea by the Company's ships. In 1779 the Porte issued a firman putting a stop to all trade between Egypt and India by the way of Suez and decreed that ships from India could proceed only as far as Jeddah. If despatches were to be sent by Suez, the messenger conveying them had to travel from Jeddah by Turkish ship. This was a hopeless arrangement and meant endless delay, besides which the fate of messengers or of any Europeans crossing the desert between Suez and Cairo was very uncertain. The terrible dangers and difficulties of the journey are graphically described in Mrs. Fay's letters. Owing to the opposition of the Turkish Government the overland route was abandoned for some time, but in 1797 an arrangement was made with them and the company's cruiser Panther, under the command of Captain Speak, sailed in that year with despatches. She left Bombay on the 9th March and reached Suez on the 5th May, where she waited for three months for return despatches; but since these did not arrive she returned to Bombay, and, being delayed by contrary winds at Mocha, finally arrived after an absence of thirteen months.

In 1798 the Government carried into execution a project which they had long been contemplating, namely, the establishment of a mail route from India to England by the Persian Gulf and Turkish Arabia. A number of packet boats were put on this service which plied between Bombay and Basrah once a month. Private correspondence was allowed to be sent by this route upon the following conditions:—

1. No letter was to exceed four inches in length, two in breadth, nor to be sealed with wax.

2. All letters were to be sent to the Secretary to Government with a note specifying the name of the writer and with the writer's name under the address, to be signed by the Secretary previous to deposit in the packet, as a warrant of permission.

3. Postage had to be paid upon the delivery of each letter at the rate of 10 rupees for a single letter weighing one-quarter of a rupee, for letters weighing half a rupee 15 rupees, and for letters weighing one rupee 20 rupees.

Two mails were sent by each despatch, one by Bagdad and one by Aleppo. We are not told if many private people were wealthy enough to pay these overwhelming rates of postage or were prepared to face the irksome conditions imposed upon anyone using this route.

In the first quarter of the nineteenth century the East India Company continued to retain a Resident at Busra long after their trade had ceased to be of any consequence. One of his principal duties was in connection with the desert post, by which despatches were forwarded to England from the Bombay Government. Later on the post of Resident was abolished, and in 1833 the desert post was closed, as despatches, when forwarded overland, were sent in the Company's cruisers via Cosseir on the Red Sea and Cairo.

On the 5th November, 1823, a meeting was held in the Town Hall at Calcutta to discuss the feasibility of establishing communication with Great Britain by means of steam navigation via the Mediterranean, Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea. A premium of £10,000 was offered to the first company or society that would bring out a steam vessel to India and establish the communication between India and England. The first steamer to reach India via the Cape was the Enterprise, commanded by Captain Johnson, in 1826. She was a vessel of five hundred tons burthen with two engines of sixty horse-power each and also built to sail, and she performed the journey in fifty-four days. Her great fault was want of room for coal, a circumstance which nearly led to a disaster on the voyage, as the coal, which had to be packed on top of the boilers, ignited and the fire was extinguished with difficulty. The credit for establishing the Suez route belongs to Lieutenant Thomas Waghorn, of the East India Company's Marine. He was the first to organize direct communication between England and India by means of fast steamers in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. In 1830 the steamer Hugh Lindsay made the first voyage from Bombay to Suez, and Waghorn from that time worked hard at his scheme. He built eight halting places in the desert between Cairo and Suez, provided carriages and placed small steamers on the Nile and the canal of Alexandria, Waghorn's triumph was on the 31st October, 1845, when he bore the mails from Bombay, only thirty days old, into London. This memorable feat settled the question of the superiority of the overland as compared with the old Cape route, but it was not given effect to without great opposition from the shipping companies.

In 1840 the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company obtained a charter of incorporation, and one of the conditions was that steam communication with India should be established within two years. This condition was fulfilled by the despatch of the Hindustan to India via the Cape of Good Hope in 1842. The advantages of the route across the isthmus of Suez were, however, too obvious, and the P. and O. Company took up a contract for the conveyance of mails between London and Suez, while vessels of the East India Company's navy conveyed them between Suez and Bombay. The journey from Alexandria to Suez was most uncomfortable for passengers. It was made by canal boat to Cairo, and then by two-wheeled vehicles across the desert to Suez. In 1844 a contract was given for five years to the P. and O. Company to establish a regular mail service in the Indian seas, with a subsidy of £160,000 a year for the combined India and China services. This contract was subsequently extended, and in January, 1853, a fresh contract was concluded with the Company under which fortnightly communication was secured between England, India and China, with a service once in two months between Singapore and Sydney. On the 7th July, 1854, a supplementary contract was entered into for the conveyance of mails between Southampton and Bombay through Alexandria, by which way the transit time was twenty-eight days. The total subsidy under both contracts was £224,300 a year. The sea postage collected by the United Kingdom and India was devoted to the payment of this subsidy, and any deficiency was borne equally by both countries. In 1867 a fresh contract for twelve years was concluded with the Company for a weekly service to and from Bombay and a fortnightly one to and from China and Japan. The annual subsidy was fixed at £400,000, to be increased to £500,000 if such should be necessary, in order to enable the Company to pay 6 per cent dividend upon their capital. This absurd clause was cancelled in 1870, and the annual subsidy was fixed at £450,000.

The Suez Canal was opened in 1869, but owing to difficulties with the British Government it was not used for the passage of the mail steamers until many years later. In 1880 the Southampton route was abolished, and the contract for the weekly service stipulated for a transit time of 17½ days between London and Bombay via Alexandria and Suez. It was not until 1888 that the mails were sent by the Suez Canal instead of by rail across Egypt.

During the term of the contract 1867-1869, the port for reception and despatch of mails was Marseilles. Arrangements were made in the new contract of 1869 for the substitution of Brindisi for Marseilles on the completion of the Mont Cenis Tunnel and railway, and Brindisi remained the European port for the reception and despatch of mails until the outbreak of war in 1914.

POST OFFICE. AGRA

On the 1st July, 1898, a new contract was drawn up for a combined Eastern and Australian service. The transit time between London and Bombay was limited to 14½ days and the annual subsidy was fixed at £330,000, of which £245,000 represented the payment for the service between Brindisi, India, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements and China. The last contract was entered into with the Company on the 1st July, 1908, for seven years. The transit time between Brindisi and Bombay was reduced to 11¼ days with an allowance of thirty-six hours in the monsoon, and the total subsidy was fixed at £305,000.

The present contract with the P. and O. Company expires in 1922, and what fate the future has in store for the Suez Canal route we cannot tell. There has been much talk of a through railway from Calais to Karachi, and with the Channel tunnel completed this would mean a railway route from London to India. The cost, however, of transporting the Indian mail, which often consists of more than ten thousand bags, over this enormous distance by rail would probably be prohibitive. Under the International Postal Convention each country traversed would have the right to claim a territorial transit charge, and with fast steamers between Marseilles and Bombay the saving in time might not be so great as has been anticipated.

Another competitor to the steamer service has appeared recently in the form of Aviation. Several proposals for an Air Mail Service between England and India have been made, but the success of long distance transits by air is not yet assured.

It has been stated that the old familiar scenes at Port Said and Aden will soon be as unknown to the Eastern traveller as Table Bay and St. Helena. The old trade routes are to be revived again, no longer with slow and picturesque caravans, but with rushing trains and aeroplanes. Despite these prophecies the P. and O. continue to build new ships, they book passages even a year ahead, and are preparing to tender for a new mail contract. Is this mere contempt, is it optimism, or is it the adoption of Warren Hastings' motto: "Mens aequa in arduis"?